1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to video streaming, and more specifically to video streaming responsive to client applications.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Client applications are extensively used in modern electronic devices, particularly with smart devices, be they stationary or mobile. These client applications may often require a video stream to be output to an output device (such as a display) in addition to data regarding that video stream being output. If such data regarding the video display is useful for other client applications, it may be beneficial to create a functional resource at a layer lower than the client application layer and available to all or most client applications within an operating system of the electronic device to perform the functional processing required to generate the data regarding the video stream. By making this process a resource available to multiple client applications, repetitive processing undertaken by each individual client application is reduced.
Presently, popular operating systems, such as Android™, do not allow for multiple client applications to simultaneously call upon various hardware resources. For example, only one client application may utilize a camera resource at a time. This is limiting in that it may not be possible for a client application to both provide the video stream from the camera to the output device as well as provide the additional data regarding that video stream generated by the functional resource discussed above. This is because the operating system allows either the client application or the functional resource, but not both, to access the camera resource. Thus, the client application can present only the video stream or only the data regarding the video stream from the functional resource, but not both simultaneously.
Additionally, such popular operating systems are limiting in that they do not allow one client application to simply draw into the graphics area of another client application. If so, a different solution than the one presented here might be possible in that the client application could simply draw into the graphics area of another client application or function resource to convey any visual data it may wish to convey.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide a system architecture that allows the desired functionality described above.